Carine Firestone shared with me a very poignant story about parental love and loss.

Sadly and unfortunately I have nothing but regrets surrounding both of my parents and their deaths. My mother died when I was 21 years old. She was 44. She and I had a very tumultuous relationship. My parents had divorced when I was 15. My Dad abandoned us, and I blamed her. We were always fighting, she and I, and I said so many terrible things to her including "Drop Dead" which she did. You know the old saying "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it". She died suddenly, and I was not able to get to her side before she died. I never had a chance to say "Mom, I am sorry, and I love you". As a mother now of a 13 year old daughter I realize all of the sacrifices she made. I understand how difficult it was for her as a mother of 3 young children without the help and support financially and emotionally of a husband. I have made peace with my regrets, but I will always regret the way I treated her and the fact that she and I never had a chance to make peace.

My father died 2 1/2 years ago. He and I had a loving close relationship. When he returned to my life 5 years after abandoning us I accepted him back and was thrilled to have him back. He became ill in May 2006 and I saw him slowly deteriorating. I saw him fighting back with courage and dignity. We, my family and I were there for him in his final months. I regret that on the day he died, at the moment he died, I was not there by his side to hold his hand and tell him one last time "Dad I love you always have and always will".

Yes, I also regret not having all of my questions answered by my parents while they were alive. My sister, brother and I have so many questions that will forever remain unanswered.

I added the bold font treatment to Carine's account becuase I think it is so very important.

Thank you, Carine, for sharing with us.

You Already Know Everyone You Need to Know

A new book by Bob Beaudine is out and it is called the Power of Who.

The premise, as the reviews I have read state it, is that we all know a lot of people in our daily lives. These people are prepared and willing to assist us in attaining our goals if we only ask them to do so. This observation Beaudine makes in distinction from "networking" where strangers meet each other often without a clue as to what each is seeking.

For our Legacy Consultants this is a powerful insight. The near universal appeal of the LifeStory preservation mission and the gorgeous LifeStory products we produce is such that each of us has a nearly universal well of human resources to tap - yet how many of us do? Fear of being "pushy" or "salesy" will sometimes cause us to down play our passion. The result is a story not capture and a memory not saved. Real people pay the price for our inactivity.

If each of us knows 200 or more people - think of the power of spreading the word at almost every encounter?

Most Lives Vanish

A friend referred me to a 2006 novel by Paul Auster called Brooklyn Follies. Towards the end of the book there are a few pages that capture with wonderful precision the need for our company. I will excerpt a few paragraphs over the next few days.

Most lives vanish. A person dies, and little by little all traces of that life disappear. An inventor survives in his inventions, an architect survives in his buildings, but most people leave behind no monuments or lasting achievements: a shelf of photograph albums, a fifth-grade report card, a bowling trophy, an ashtray filched from a Florida hotel room on the final morning of some dimly remembered vacation. A few objects, a few documents, and a smattering of impressions made on other people. Those people invariably tell stories about the dead person, but more often than not dates are scrambled, facts are left out, and the truth becomes increasingly distorted, and when those people die in their turn, most of the stories vanish with them.

New Year's Challenge

A short video wherein I challenge you to make one of your resolutions life story capture for 2009. Be an an LC, refer an LC, be a client or all of the above . . . this year will fly by as fast as 2008, so we need to get on it right away!


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